Hello and welcome back to Startups Weekly, a weekend newsletter that dives into the weeks noteworthy startups and venture capital news.
Before I jump into todays topic, lets catch up a bit.
Last week, I wrote about Airbnbs issues.
Before that, I noted Ubers new money team.Remember, you can send me tips, suggestions and feedback to kate.clark@techcrunch.com or on Twitter@KateClarkTweets.
If youre new, you can subscribe to Startups Weekly here.Chinas pivot to AfricaThree African fintech startups; OPay, PalmPay and East African trucking logistics company Lori Systems,closed large fundraises this year.
On their own, the deals arent particularly notable, but together, they expose a new trend within the African startup ecosystem.This year, those three companies brought in a total of $240 million in venture capital funding from 15 different Chinese investors, whove become increasingly active in Africas tech scene.
TechCrunch reporter Jake Bright, who covers African tech, writes that2019 marks the year Chinese investors went all in on the continents startup scene particularly its fintech projects.
Why?The continents 1.2 billion people represent the largest share of the worlds unbanked and underbanked population which makes fintech Africas most promising digital sector, Bright notes.
In previous years, the countrys interactions with African startups were relatively light compared to deal-making on infrastructure and commodities.
Chinese actors investing heavily in African mobile consumer platforms lends to looking at new data-privacy and security issues for the continent.Active Chinese investors in Africa include Hillhouse Capital, Meituan-Dianping, GaoRong, Source Code Capital, SoftBank Ventures Asia, BAI, Redpoint, IDG Capital, Sequoia China, Crystal Stream Capital, GSR Ventures, Chinese mobile-phone maker Transsion and NetEase .Heres more of TechCrunchs recent coverage of Africa startup activity:VC DealsIt was a short week (Happy Thanksgiving, by the way).
But heres a quick look at the top deals of the last few days.M-A (VR edition)Last week, Facebook announced it was buying Beat Games, the game studio behind Beat Saber, a rhythm game thats equal parts Fruit Ninja and Guitar Hero.
Heard of the company? Maybe if youre a gamer, but if youre readying this newsletter because of your interest in VC, this company may not have come across your radar.Why? Its one of virtual realitys biggest successes today, but its just an eight-person team with no funding.Im really proud that we were able to build the company with this mindset of making decisions based on what is good for the game and not what is the most profitable thing, Beat Games CEO told TechCrunch earlier this year.
Read about Facebooks acquisition here and an in-depth profile of the small team here.EquityIf you like this newsletter, you will definitely enjoy Equity, which brings the content of this newsletter to life in podcast form! Join myself and Equity co-host Alex Wilhelm every Friday for a quick breakdown of the weeks biggest news in venture capital and startups.This week, we discussed Weekend Funds new vehicle, Cocoons new friend-tracking app and the unfortunate demise of a startup called Omni.
You can listen here.Equity drops every Friday at 6:00 am PT, so subscribe to us onApple Podcasts,Overcast,Spotify and all the casts.